The present invention relates to bearing assembly arrangements and, more particularly, to a shaft locking arrangement for bearing assemblies.
Various arrangements are known in the art to secure the inner ring of a bearing assembly to a rotating shaft with as strong a physical locking force being exerted as is reasonably possible to insure secure locking to a shaft with maximum accommodation for radial and thrust or axial loads or either of them on the shaft. Such arrangements have included shaft bearing set screws, plural locking or tightening means on a shaft surrounding collar with double screw arrangements and, more recently, the patented SKWEZLOC.RTM. arrangement which includes equally spaced inner ring finger extensions which, when locked with a single screw locking collar, serves to grip and hold a shaft and the inner ring tightly in position allowing near-perfect concentricity of the inner ring with the shaft and higher shaft speeds.
The novel features of the present invention can be utilized in combination with any one of a number of known force applying arrangements for securing a bearing assembly to a shaft and are particularly adaptable to the compressible collar and inner ring finger extensions of the known SKWEZLOC.RTM. arrangement resulting in the concomitant advantages of near-perfect shaft-ring concentricity and an increased capacity for locking under high loads and for high shaft operating speeds. Further, the present invention provides a new and useful shaft locking arrangement which is straightforward and economical in manufacture, operation and assembly, requiring a minimum of tooling and parts but requiring no additional assembly steps. Moreover, the arrangement of the present invention serves to increase shaft locking capacity with improved accommodation for radial and thrust or axial loads, or either of them, accomplishing a locking capability of two tightening screws with only one screw by placing inner ring extensions during shaft locking in less shear and more bending through a unique and novel arrangement wherein radial forces are exerted on the outermost portions of inner ring extensions with the inner most portions being relieved to convert what would otherwise be shear stresses to bending stresses.
Various other features of the present invention will become obvious to one skilled in the art upon reading the disclosure set forth herein.